TIRANA - Six people including four policemen were injured late last night during armed clashes at an anti government demonstration in the southern town of Vlora, the Albanian interior ministry said. Three policemen and two civilians were shot and wounded during two armed incidents, the ministry said, attributing the shooting to "a group of terrorists" among the demonstrators.
The trouble began earlier when police used clubs and water cannon to break up a crowd of 2,000 protesters demanding their money back from a property company in Vlora that went bust.
Security forces fired shots into the air to disperse the crowd.
Protesters demanded the resignation of President Sali Berisha and his right wing government whom they blame for the investment fiasco of the Gjallica real estate and finance company, based in Vlora, 210 km south of the Albanian capital.
The collapse of Gjallica, announced yesterday, follows that of other popular pyramid schemes in which up to 300,000 people had invested their life savings.
Gjallica had promised two months ago to reimburse by February 6th its 400,000 investors who had poured some 5300,000 dollars into the company. But company official Fittim Gerxhalliu was quoted as saying yesterday that there was no money left.
Press reports said the bankruptcy was a "fatal blow" to Albania's savings system as "the entire southern part of the country, attracted by promises made by Gjallica, had deposited large sums of money" in the company.